


Earth

by make_your_user_a_name



Series: Suptober 2020 [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: (the episode lol), Angst, Canon Compliant, Castiel Makes a Deal with The Shadow (Supernatural), Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Despair, Earth, First Kiss, Hurt No Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, POV Castiel (Supernatural), The Empty (Supernatural), bloody handprint, ish, prose, there isn't a tag for it yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26774938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/make_your_user_a_name/pseuds/make_your_user_a_name
Summary: And then he’d met Dean Winchester. And maybe met is too weak a word. He’d raised Dean Winchester from the infernos of damnation and painstakingly rearranged every atom in his body to it’s perfect form.But that wasn’t what changed him. It was watching Dean. Watching him choose others over and over, watching him selflessly defend the world, watching him refuse to be controlled by the whims of those in power.That’s what taught Cas to feel.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Suptober 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951960
Comments: 6
Kudos: 43





	Earth

**Author's Note:**

> written for [suptober](https://winchester-reload.tumblr.com/post/630515631381479424/its-that-time-of-the-year-again-where-we-all-roll) 2020 day 2: earth

The other angels never got it. Why he loved it so much.

Well really, he’d never understood it either. His home was in Heaven. His family was in Heaven. Most of his eons of life had been spent in Heaven. Even God, the father he was taught to love and worship, had been in Heaven. 

But Heaven wasn’t Earth. 

Heaven didn’t have mountains that jutted out from the land, reaching for the sky but never quite touching it. Heaven didn’t have wide networks of rivers, snaking across continents, cutting the land deeper and deeper and forming wide gaping canyons. Heaven didn’t have entire ecosystems of life underwater carefully balanced, able to survive with the meager sunlight provided from above. 

But it wasn’t just about the astonishing natural beauty of Earth. The other angels never would have understood that anyway. Awe was such a human emotion. Angels were better suited for obedience. 

What drew Castiel to Earth, over and over, were the imperfections. 

The way nature never quite conformed to patterns. The way flowers sprouted up across an entire field in patches, some small and some spanning miles. The way animals that could have- should have been enemies pulled together to make a better life for both of them. The way snow fell in Spring, covering the buds of green and suffocating them. 

And when humans had come along, they’d tried to explain it all. Written countless equations, established rules that couldn’t be broken, scales that measured everything. They tried over and over to make sense of the world, to reign it in and fit it into their small box of human understanding. And they failed. Every single time. 

And maybe that’s what fascinated Cas. Because he would never be able to understand it, to explain it, even with millions of years of experience, of divine understanding. 

He loved the imperfections. The complexity. The systems that had taken on a life of their own after their creator left them. 

But he loved humanity too. Long before humanity had become a very narrow word in his mind, he loved to watch people struggle to fit into the world. To watch them try and define themselves, to define others. He loved to watch them fall in love, to watch their hearts break, to watch them be lifted up and dragged back down just as quickly. 

For millions of years, he thought that would be another thing he would never understand. The range of human emotion. The depth to which they can feel. 

And then he’d met Dean Winchester. Or maybe met is too weak a word. He’d raised Dean Winchester from the infernos of damnation and painstakingly rearranged every atom in his body to its perfect form. 

But that wasn’t what changed him. It was watching Dean. Watching him choose others over and over, watching him selflessly defend the world, watching him refuse to be controlled by the whims of those in power. 

That’s what taught Cas to feel. 

It was strange, at first. To be on a mission, and feel his heart crying out, yearning to be with someone else. To see an innocent lifeless before him and feel a stab of guilt, of pain for a human he had never met. To feel conflicted when he was given an order, not just confused and full of doubt as he always had been, but torn, broken, afraid to go through with what was being asked of him. 

He grew to love it though. To love the joy, the elation, the swell in his breast when he looked at something beautiful. But even more he learned to love the pain, the heartbreak, the feeling of being totally alone in the world. Because they taught him. They taught him that just like Earth, humanity was not perfect, yet he loved it all the same. He fell for it- no, for _him_ , all the same. 

And now he had to leave. 

It wasn’t that he feared death. He was no great loss to this world. The Winchesters, of course, would be upset. But they would move on, in time. But everyone else… they would see Castiel’s death as a triumph for Earth. 

So he wasn’t afraid, not of what he would leave behind. But he wanted to stay. As selfish as it was, he didn’t want to leave. He wanted more time to roam the Earth, to discover places no man had ever set foot before, to watch the seasons change, and people change with them. 

He’d known, when he made the deal, that he’d be taken. He had not known it would be so soon. 

Even crouched behind Dean’s bed, both of them breathing heavily as the knocks on the door grew louder, he didn’t know why the time was now. Because he wasn’t happy. He wasn’t exactly unhappy, but there would always be that one thing, the unspoken thing that would keep him from true happiness. 

And he was okay with it. He didn’t expect it. The unlikeliness of it ever happening was the reason he’d ever made the deal. 

“Cas,” Dean breathed quietly, clutching his side and breathing quietly. “Are you- I mean, why is it here now? I thought you said-”

“The deal was I could live until I was truly happy,” Cas said tiredly. The last 24 hours had not been kind. He’d told the Winchester’s about his deal, which resulted in anger from Sam and numbness then tears from Dean. Which wasn’t quite how he thought it would go. But regardless, it was with heavy hearts they had all gone to bed, only to be woken by a cosmic entity a few hours later. 

“And, you’re still not…” Dean trailed off. That had been the part Dean got caught up on. Not that he’d made a deal, or sacrificed himself, or had stopped the Shadow from taking Jack, but that he wasn’t happy. 

“No, Dean,” Cas said quietly. 

“Dammit, Cas.” There it was. That spark of anger. Dean lashing out because he didn’t know exactly what he was feeling. But there wasn’t any of the usual fire behind it, he just sounded tired. 

“I’m not going to let it take you.” 

“I don’t think you have a choice.” 

“I’m serious, man. We can’t do this without you.” 

And Cas almost laughed at that one. Of course they could. He wasn’t a necessary part of this team. His being part of it, even his desire to stay in this world, it was all selfish. He wanted to stay because he loved it, not because they loved him. 

“Yes, you can.” 

“Will you shut up? Look, Cas, I,” Dean took a deep breath, “I know you think of me and Sam as brothers…” Dean trailed off and Cas looked at his hands. If only it were that simple. “And I want you to know we care about you too, even if we don’t say it enough. But,” he hesitated again and Cas looked up in concern. Maybe the wound in Dean’s side was worse than he thought. Dean readjusted himself against the bed and started again. “But I cannot let you die without telling you.” 

Cas barely registered the words, looking closely at Dean’s wound and resting his hand next to it to try and sense the severity with his grace. It was fading every day, but he was enough in tune with Dean that he could normally get a read on him fairly quickly. 

“I love you,” Dean blurted. 

The world stopped spinning. Maybe somewhere, far across the earth, someone was still breathing, still talking, still grieving, still rejoicing, still living. But in the tiny bedroom deep within the bunker, nothing moved. Dean’s steady breathing froze, Cas’ hand on his side came to a standstill, the knocking on the door went soft.

Then everything was in motion again. The knocking more insistent, pounding through the wood, the beginnings of splinters starting to form. 

“I love you,” Dean repeated quietly. “And I know you don’t feel the same. But I can’t let you die- die _again_ , without you knowing.” 

And that’s when Cas felt it. More strongly than any emotion he’d ever felt, coursing through his whole body and making his lips turn up in spite of, well, everything. Happiness. Pure, simple, _real_ happiness. 

For once, he didn’t think. 

He just pulled Dean toward him, tilting his chin up as he did. In his eyes, he saw nothing but trust. 

Then he kissed him softly, reaching up his hand bloodied from Dean’s side to grip his shoulder. Dean melted into him immediately, a soft sigh escaping his lips. Cas squeezed him tighter, afraid to let go, afraid of what it would mean. 

When he finally pulled away, he looked into Dean’s dazed eyes and smiled softly. “I love you too, Dean.” 

Before the hunter had a chance to respond, the door came crashing open and Billie--no, the Shadow--came walking in. 

The smile on her face was completely empty. There was absolutely nothing behind it. No anger, no malice, no joy, no mirth just… nothingness. 

“It’s time, Castiel,” she said, and her voice sent shivers up Cas’ spine. 

He peeled his hand off Dean’s shoulder, ignoring the bloody mark it left behind, and stood to face her. “I know.” 

Dean stumbled to his feet next him. “No. Hell, no, Cas I said you were staying and you’re staying if you think I’m gonna fucking let you walk away after-”

“I made a deal, Dean.”

“So what? You aren’t gonna fight? You’re just gonna give in. Bullshit, Cas.” Dean’s voice was rising in anger, but tears were glistening in his eyes and they were wide with pain, with emotion. 

Cas reached forward, wiping a tear from his face, almost letting his resolve weaken when Dean immediately leaned into his hand, desperate for contact, and then turned to face the Shadow. 

She took him by the shoulders, and for a minute, he saw it all. He saw stretches of open plain, vast cities rising from the ground, a ladybug walking delicately over a strand of grass, a man picking up another man’s dropped papers, smiling at him, a wave crashing on a rocky shore. He saw Earth. 

And then all of it faded from his vision and he was left with only one picture, crystal clear. 

Dean Winchester, eyes widened in fear, a bloody handprint on his shoulder, reaching out desperately to save him, to raise him from eternal emptiness. He looked helpless, broken, lost. Cas wanted to run to him, to kiss him and say everything was going to be okay. But he couldn’t. Earth didn’t need him anymore. Dean’s face filled his mind and he sobbed. 

Then he blinked. And everything went black. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos much appreciated :)
> 
> say hi on [ tumblr](https://tearsofgrace.tumblr.com/)!!


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